I tested a party of 4 clerics in KotC, only one was able to summon an elemental at a time. It would be nice for all party members who can summon to be able to summon one creature each instead of one creature for the whole party.

This shouldn't be too hard to do, one time in the cave southwest of the starting zone the evil cleric summoned two elementals in a row and both stayed active, so the one summon at a time limit doesnt seem to apply to enemy casters.

I think there should be room for armor to be made from cold iron and silver as well, or at least armor spikes made from these materials, if a creature who has a DR weakness of the same type as the armor being worn, and that creature attempts to grapple the character, I think the creature should be harmed by the armor, not by much, even 1d6 would be enough because they are grappling onto someone who is wearing metal that cuts through their natural resistances. Or a type of armor enchantment that does damage to anyone who grapples the player wearing that armor.

Item crafting is one of the reasons why I purchased KotC, I was searching for a good RPG that had a good item crafting system, I know you have your reasons for not wanting to add it to the engine you are creating, but it would still be nice if its not too late to add in.

I came up with an idea for crafting, I know your opinion is that crafting of items takes away from the rewards of finding good items, and that being able to create the rare material weapons and armor almost from the start like in KotC make it a bit too easy, so I've taken those things into consideration for 2 parts on how I would change the crafting from KotC to balance it out.

To start with, instead of 2 forms of 'currency' used to create items, gold and xp, I would expand it to 5 forms of currency; gold, xp, 'common materials', 'rare materials', and 'magical materials'.

My idea would be that regular steel/wood/leather and silver would fall under 'common materials', adamantium, mithril, cold iron would fall under 'rare materials' and any form of enchanted item or enchanting of weapons/armor would require 'magical materials'.

As an example, a steel dagger might take 1 common material in addition to some xp/gold, while a silver dagger might take 3 common materials, an adamantium dagger might take 5 rare materials and 3 common materials, while a cold iron dagger might just take 2 rare materials and 3 common materials.

If you wanted to enchant a masterwork weapon to +1 it would take say.. 2 magical materials, from +1 to +2 would take 4 magical materials, from +2 to +3 would take 8 magical materials, 16 materaisl to get up to +4, 32 for +5, etc.

This way, you can place a limit on the ammount of common rare and magical materials are given as rewards in order to limit the crafting options of players.

IN addition to the above, I have a second idea that can limit crafting while keeping it available and making reward loot a good thing.

When players get the abilty to craft items, they are only allowed to make weapons and armor of the most basic materials first, and not even make master crafted items. Then through a quest reward they can unlock the ability to make silver weapons, then as another quest reward they can unlock the ability to make masterwork items, and then later they can unlock as separate rewards the ability to make cold iron, mithril, and adamantium.

In a manner similar to this, instead of just having a level requirement and magical material requirement for the enchanting of magical weapons/armor/items, players can only craft up to +1 enchantments when they unlock the ability to enchant items, and then unlock the ability to enchant up to +2, and then +3, and so on as the game continues.

The same could be true for wands and scrolls and potions, at first they can only make level 1 spells, they might find some level 2-3 spells as loot but only be able to make level 1 spells, then unlock the ability to make level 2 spells as these items, but they can find level 3-4 items as loot.

The key to the above time when these unlocks are made, is that the unlocks are never better than the loot the players earn at any point in the game. If the players can only make +1 items, then the best loot they can earn at that time should be better than the best items they can craft. This I can see as being tricky to plan out, but to me it would be worthwhile to have in the end product.

WIth everything posted above, players would eventually still be able to make their own weapons/armor/items and enchanted magical items, they would never be able to make anything without having enough materials in addition to gold/xp, and materials would only be available as loot/rewards. In addition, while players are able to make +1/+2 items they are finding +3/+4 items as loot, so they are not able to make the best items available to them, but can make a versitile array of items to customize their characters if they are willing to not use the 'best' in order to use what they like.

As a few end comments I'm wondering, whats with the choices in player races for Kotc2/Fantasy World Engine? Also, I would not mind if fighters has less feats in general if the weapon focus/weapon specialization feats were boiled down so that they were a single feat that applied to all weapons, or maybe just two weapon groups "melee' weapons and 'ranged' weapons.

My problem with the common materials is that: why should you need to collect common materials to produce, say, a dagger, when it is much easier to buy a dagger from merchants? And the same could be said for weapons made in silver, adamantine or cold iron. It shouldn't be too difficult to buy a masterwork cold iron longsword (or any other weapon type). Plus, do we really want to allow the player to craft new stuff while exploring a dungeon? in between two battles? And if he can only do it in the city, then why not just buy the stuff.

But maybe we should treat cold iron, silver, mithral and adamantine as being really rare, then you have a good point. In this case the game should distribute ingots of the various types as a reward while exploring or as quest reward. And then a NPC could craft the appropriate weapon or armour type for the player, in exchange for a number of ingots + gold.

Magical materials is what I have in mind when I talk about rare gems. For example a +5 enchantment would require a star diamond while a +4 enchantment would require a more common fire diamond. The gem is used up in the process of crafting. Because of this limit, I do not see a real need to lock and unlock crafting abilities. As long as the player does not find a star diamond he cannot craft a +5 enchantment.

What about the player races? do you not like them? I just think the original ones are a bit bland so I made some changes.As part of the current design, the weapon focus/weapon specialization feats have already been regrouped. Now they are called simply Attack Focus and Damage Focus.

'Say there is a chunk of meat. Pirates will have a banquet and eat it! But heroes will share it with other people. I want all the meat!!' - Luffy in One Piece

I just really love item crafting. To me it would not matter if its an NPC that can craft it for the party or the party itself crafting the item. Cold Iron/ Mithril/ Adamantium should be rare, the expensiveness is one thing, but they're expensive because the material is much rarer than platnium and gold, and the knowledge to actually work the material into something useful wouldn't be known by every smith, which is why I figured it could be unlocked as some kind of quest reward.

I don't think of kobolds/centaurs or really any of the other 'extra' races as being the adventuring type. I can see why some people would find the non-standard races, or monster-manual races to be fun to use as player-characters, but I always associate people trying to do this as a power-gamey kind of option. But I can see the variety they provide, even if i dont like them as option, was there any reason why you didnt keep the half-elf and half-dwarf options?

I like the idea of metal ingots for crafting. It creates a possibility for more exotic materials like crystal or dark steel.

For the kobolds and others, they don't have to be thought of as being typical representatives of their race, for example they could be outcasts or geniuses. I have no problem with power gaming as long as all the races have good points that make them attractive. For the half-elf, I just think it might be the blandest of all the standard races. It has no salient feature and looks much like a human. Half-dwarves are also much like humans. That's why I used them in KotC but now I don't have that requirement any more.

'Say there is a chunk of meat. Pirates will have a banquet and eat it! But heroes will share it with other people. I want all the meat!!' - Luffy in One Piece

Speaking of choice, will there be a possibility of seeing dual/multiclassing like other 3rd edition games in d and d. I liked the 1st game but it has very little replayability because there werent alot of races and classes to choose. But thats not even it. I usually like to start out with 2 clerics and then at level 2 and more-put all their levels in Fighter or what not.

I guess the next game will be more interesting because there is more races but it still would be cool. Knights of the Chalice is fun but is not likely to replay.

Remember that, in 3.5e, the most overpowered race for a player character tends to be Human, because of the skill rank and the feat at LA+0. And you can't play a Centaur in a starting party. So, uh, smart min-maxxers tend to play human... and this is the FULL list of races you can play at level 1 in 3.5e:

Sorry, I'm not planning that. But I might add new classes and races later on. The new classes could be equivalent to what you would get with multiclassing in AD&D 2nd edition. I would prefer that over the 3rd edition multiclassing.

'Say there is a chunk of meat. Pirates will have a banquet and eat it! But heroes will share it with other people. I want all the meat!!' - Luffy in One Piece